Queen guitarist Sir Brian May has announced his resignation as a vice president of the Royal Society For The Prevention Of Cruelty To Animals (RSPCA). “It is with profound sadness and not without massive soul-searching that today I have to offer my resignation as a vice-president of the RSPCA,” May posted to Instagram, adding how he had been kept informed “of complaints that have been levelled in recent months at the RSPCA over appallingly bad standards of animal welfare in member farms of the RSPCA Assured scheme…. I have understood that the RSPCA needed time to evaluate the evidence and make decisions on action to be taken.”

May also captioned his post:

My letter of resignation earlier today as a Vice President to the RSPCA. A very sad day – and a painful decision to make. But in the face of the recent revelations about conditions in some farms in the RSPCA Assured scheme, I feel the RSPCA have had ample time to do the right thing – but have tried to justify their position. And meanwhile good folks out there are still paying extra for animal produce with the RSPCA sticker on it, thinking they are protecting farm animals from cruelty[.] A very hard decision, because of all the great things the RSPCA do, but in the end there was no other option for me. Bri

According to the BBC, an RSPCA spokeswoman responded by saying the org respects Sir Brian’s “views and understands his decision” before adding: “His ongoing and devoted work campaigning on issues such as the badger cull and hunting have been invaluable for all animals and we look forward to speaking up on these issues with him in the future.”

The spokeswoman also called farming “hard, and farmed animal welfare is even harder” while adding that the RSPCA wanted to “give our supporters, partners and the public confidence that RSPCA Assured is consistently delivering better welfare than standard farming practices… So, we launched an independent review of RSPCA Assured, which has been carried out over several months, including unannounced visits to more than 200 members of the scheme.

“Once we have analysed our findings, we will take any robust action necessary.”

Read May’s full statement below.

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